


Youth

by nerdy-flower (baconnegg)



Series: The Shimada Brothers Need Healing [11]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Because Gabe isn't always accurate, Dad feelings, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Bonding, Family Fluff, Fareeha's dad doesn't get any lines but he's a good guy, Gabe Jack and Ana are basically all coparenting, Gabe and Jack are a Mess but they're doing their best, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Karaoke, M/M, More tender masculinity in 2019, Multi, Old men bickering and sorting their shit out, Sliiiightly unreliable narrator, gay dad Jack and bi dad Gabe, good communication, or completely honest with himself, sorry Sam, supportive family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 06:32:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19245751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baconnegg/pseuds/nerdy-flower
Summary: Gabe's perspective as he watches Jesse and the other kids grow up, while still sorting out his own nonsense.(AKA: this was supposed to be solely a father/son fic, but then R76 crashed the party)





	Youth

**Author's Note:**

> Brief and non-graphic mentions of injuries/violence, blood, and vomit, moments of angst but nothing overly dark

Jesse McCree was his last shot. 

After Olivia's adoption went through, Gabriel backed off of fostering, going overseas too often and too long for it to be practical. Ana and Sam kept it up longer by sheer determination, but he's the first call when their marriage officially slams into the rocks. 

“I know what the caseworker is going to say.” Ana's sigh hisses through the phone from the hotel room she's staying in (just for a few days, just so they can both get some space, just until she has to report back to base anyways). “And we both know the outcome.” 

“No kidding.” Gabe leans the kitchen chair back, legs scraping against the aged linoleum. He's gotten to halfway-know Jesse by then. Chucked his ace bandages in the trash and gotten him proper binders and an endo who prescribed T-shots with no bullshit. The kid had already rolled on Deadlock, buying himself a spot in witness protection and a placement with one of the world's best snipers, by no means a bad attempt at keeping him safe. 

But he's still a kid. A kid with hard eyes and a smart mouth. Initially eager to spit on any helping hands and charge headlong down the road to prison. His time in la Casa de Amari has sanded down some edges, but he's in no shape to survive another two years of bouncing around the system, let alone being spat out rootless and choiceless at eighteen. 

Olivia had been thrust into care as a newborn, and though Gabe had taken her in while she was still picking her nose, the scars of those years manifest in an odd sort of avoidant attachment disorder. There's nothing outwardly wrong- her grades are fine, her rebellions at acceptable preteen levels if admittedly very creative, she's generally a smiley, happy kid. But she makes her own meals and runs her own schedule without a second thought, at times acting more like his roommate than his child. 

Jesse's wounds lay open and deep. Watching him reminds Gabriel of a horizon scourged by drought, reduced to cracked sand and shimmering mirages and brittle thorns. But not yet beyond a steady rain soaking through and returning it to rich, dark earth and defiant, verdant green. He needs reminding that he's more than the blood he's spilled, and so does Gabe. 

He might not know how to make any of it better, but the least he can do is try to raise them strong enough to someday take down their own walls. Maybe it will be enough. 

“So, what do you say?” 

Gabe blows out an almost-laugh through his nose. “'Course I'll take him.” 

A short groan of relief. “Thank you. I- he doesn't deserve this, you know? None of them do, but-” 

“No, I know.” Gabriel tips back further, almost horizontal, balancing with his toes on the lip of the dining table. “Anything else I can do?” 

“No, nothing. Honestly, I'm just tired. It hurts, but I had my chance to fix things and I didn't take it.” A few seconds' pause, a small bite of laughter that verges on broken. “Do you think Fareeha will forgive me, eventually?” 

He keeps the pain in his expression and out of his voice. “Hey, in terms of excuses to blame her future bad decisions on, this one's pretty weak. She'll be fine.” 

There's a strange, too-recognizable lightness in her voice. “Your confidence is enviable, Reyes.” 

Gabe snorts. “Tell me something I don't know.” 

They do the separation shuffle for a month or so before Jesse actually ends up at his place, intent on doing everything possible to push him away. And god, if he isn't a determined little shit in that regard, but Gabe doesn't yield. 

“Okay, this isn't working.” He slams the car door shut after Jesse's second expulsion in eight months, leaving the shittier high school in their zip code in the rearview. “I've got a better idea.” 

“I'm all ears,” Jesse lips back, eyes out the window while he licks a tissue and tries to clean the dried blood off his upper lip. There's pride in the curl of his mouth. He wants to be given up on, more than anything, nothing short of getting tossed out on his ass will leave him feeling vindicated. 

“Rather than making this a hat trick, you can see if they'll give you full-time hours, or you can go to the adult ed place downtown.” Gabe flicks his eyes over to Jesse for as long as he can afford to take them off the road. “Your choice.” 

He catches the flash behind the brown before looking back. “You think I fuckin' want-” 

“A or B, it's not an essay question.” He takes no pleasure in pulling out the commander voice at home, but if it works, then it works. 

Jesse sucks his teeth, then goes silent for a few moments, arms tight across his chest. “Sal said they need somebody on day shift. If I work enough doubles, I can finally get a truck.” 

“A truck, eh?” Gabriel snickers, the heavy air lifting ever so slightly as they rev towards home. “Who's gonna pay the insurance on that?” 

“I've got money!” comes the response, snappish and almost endearingly naive. “Plus I'll get more tips when- oh, shit.” 

Jesse's nose turns out to be significantly broken and they spend the rest of the evening in the ER when it won't quit bleeding. The black eye gets him fired, but he manages to find a better gig as soon as the swelling goes down. The resourcefulness shouldn't make Gabe smile, but it does. 

The Arctic-cold shoulder he gives Olivia for the first year or so starts thawing when he needs her help with something on the PC she's assembled in the corner of their living room. When they start shouting at each other over hogging the bathroom, Gabe catches himself breathing an odd sigh of relief. 

Probably won't win him any parenting awards, but he tries to leave them be unless they give him a reason not to. Ignoring the air freshener-blanketed weed smell from Jesse's room and Olivia's tiptoes downstairs at oh-dark thirty, letting them think they have one over on him. Besides, it's not like he never worries. 

“Talking to your boyfriend on there?” Gabe inquires with forced levity from his slump in front of the TV. 

Olivia shoots him a puckered look from her pajama-clad perch in the rolling chair, her rapid-fire typing barely pausing. “God no, guys are so useless.” 

Gabe tries to laugh, wincing instead at the sharp twinge from his cracked ribs. “You're not wrong there, mija.” 

He gets the offer while on duty, accepting it but unable to call home for weeks. Olivia is almost dismissive when he finally comes back and breaks it to her gently, bordering on gleeful at the upcoming change in scenery while Jesse's still asleep. He's working the evening shift at the truck stop on the other side of the highway, so Gabe waits to tell him until the ride home. 

“Up North, huh? Damn,” Jesse muses, picking at the red-raw skin around his nails. His head jerks up suddenly. “Wait, like where Jack-” 

“Don't bother finishing that thought, that is not why.” Gabe jabs Jesse in his skinny ribs while he keeps right on laughing at him. “They're putting a task force together, a lot of us are getting called up there.” 

“Sure, sure.” Jesse snorts, straightening his ridiculous hat and sitting back, one foot on the dash. “Guess I better start apartment-hunting, eh?” 

“That's what I wanted to talk to you about.” Gabe tuts as he gets cut off, manoeuvring onto the off-ramp all the same. “I can adopt you, if you want, and you can come with us. Even if you want to stay here, I'll still do it, but only if that's what you want. Don't feel like you have to say yes.” 

Jesse freezes like a startled rabbit. Gabe can feel the weight of his stare, and he sounds so damn young when he asks. “Do- do y'mean it?” 

Oh, goddamn it. He can't help but sound almost exasperated. “Jess, of course I mean it.” He turns his head at a four-way stop to reassure him. Not that he can't lie while making eye contact, but he's tried not to with him and Liv. “It's all your decision. Stay, go, adopt or don't. Only hitch is that you can't move there if we don't do the paperwork, and you'll be too old next year.” 

“Ah, yeah, right.” Jesse shifts in his seat, scratches at the baby's-first-chinscruff he's been diligently growing, his voice on edge. “Can I like- sleep on it? Y'kinda caught me off-guard, here.” 

“Yeah, of course.” Gabe hums as the car makes an unfortunate rattle. They can look at it in the morning. “And don't think you'll be cut off if you decide against it. You won't get rid of us that easily.” 

Jesse laughs, a little hollow, but almost defensively agrees after two days' sleep. The near-suffocating embrace Gabriel receives at the courthouse is the last time Jesse hugs him with both arms. 

“-So you're certain that you didn't recognize them at all?” 

“I _told_ you, I don't fucking know!” Jesse barks back, borderline hysterical, his hospital gown slouching open at the neck. “All I know is they weren't Deadlock, this shit's too dirty for- they would have come back and finished the job and they _didn't-”_

“Okay, that's enough.” Gabe squeezes Jesse's shoulder before standing and briskly walking the detective out of the room, shutting the thin door behind them. “Be honest, what's the likelihood of catching these bastards?” 

The grey-haired man shakes his head and tucks his notebook back into his jacket, face permanently etched in tired lines. “We'll keep investigating, and we'll keep an officer posted here until he's discharged, but if you were planning to leave town, my advice would be to hurry up and get gone.” 

Gabriel scowls, disappointed but entirely unsurprised, and briefly thanks him before heading back inside. Jesse's shaking all over, hand clamped over his eyes as he silently, breathlessly sobs. The spot of fresh blood seeping through the thick bandages on what remains of his left arm has Gabe blindly smacking the call bell as he reaches for him. “Hey, it's okay. Try to breathe, Jess-” 

“It hurts,” Jesse bleats, voice as raw as the roadrash covering his chest and the underside of his jaw. “Hurts so fuckin' bad-” 

“I know.” Gabe bends over the railing, cradling Jesse's face to his shoulder as gently as he can. “The nurse is coming, you're okay. I'm here. It's all gonna be okay...” 

Redressing his arm and settling him with pain shots takes time, but Jesse eventually falls asleep. In the dark, Gabe slides the keyboard out of his phone and exchanges some quick texts with Olivia, makes sure she sets the alarm and tells her that Jesse's doing fine and of course she can come visit after school tomorrow, but to wait inside until he picks her up. 

Nodding at the cop holding up the wall outside, Gabriel slips down the hall. Takes the back stairs and the first exit out into the muggy air, heading around the corner and discovering what must be the sad sack smoking area, judging by the layer of grimy butts on the ground. 

Away from the fragile, linen-white tension of Jesse's room, he lets his blood boil. Pulse throbbing in his neck, he stares up into the dark and itemizes the list of things he'd like to do to the ones responsible. Jesse has as many knife wounds and bullet grazes as he does, and he's still a kid. He's just a fucking kid. 

Slamming his fist twice into the yellowed cement wall, just shy of enough force to actually break anything, is nowhere near satisfying but it's better than nothing. The sting of open skin so familiar, it's practically comfort food at this point. 

“Easy now,” another familiarity carries over his shoulder. “You don't know where that wall's been.” 

He stills for only a second, shaking his head and pasting on a dry smile as he turns around. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Captain America?” 

“Shove it.” And there's that good old Jack Morrison smile, the one that eludes all the press photographers. Gabe wants to hate how glad he is to see it right now, only for a moment before it's replaced by furrowed concern. “How is he?” 

“Alive and likely to stay that way, thank God.” Gabe digs his nails into the back of his neck. “You came all the way here just to ask that?” 

“Well no, I-” 

“Gentlemen.” Gérard's prim accent cuts through the air, drawing their eyes to where he leans against a rental car parked at the curb. “Forgive my interruption, but I have a plane to catch. Are my services needed any further?” 

“Hah, no, thanks. I'm good here.” 

“Where the hell are you going?” Gabe asks as he pushes off the wall, slowly registering that Gérard came back to town a while ago and they were supposed to meet for drinks the day he got the call. Not that he had to worry about hard feelings, he wasn't like the other hotshots Gabe had met in the forces. He could dish it out and take it in equal measure. If only the other top-of-their-class recruits had that much of a clue about how to get on good terms with the senior officers. 

“Skiing in the Napa Valley, with the in-laws.” 

“Oh, fuck off with that.” 

“Yes, yes, I know.” Gérard discreetly grips Gabe's upper arm, his smirk flattening beneath his neatly-groomed moustache. “Next time, then? Give my best to Jesse.” 

“Nah, I'll give him your worst.” Gabe sniffs, the air thick with bugs and ready for a storm. “Say hi to the wife for me.” 

Gérard bids them adieu, a slight spring in his step at the mere mention of Amélie. A younger second wife was usually the first pit stop on the road to insufferable douchebaggery for a guy, but they seemed like the real deal. He's happy for them, especially since his first wife was one crusty piece of work. 

“Here.” 

He blinks out of his thoughts when Jack reaches into his back pocket and hands him a small foil square. A moist towelette, of course. Of course he has one. Gabriel's laugh echoes across the empty street. “Jesus fucking Christ, Morrison.” 

“What?” Jack's voice cracks slightly. “I have a toddler, remember? She's sticky like, ninety percent of the time.” 

“Yeah, sure.” Gabe snorts, tearing the fiddly thing open and cleaning the drying blood and grit off his hand. Jack adopted a little bundle of cute named Hana Song while they were staying out of each other's faces, so he hasn't really seen much of her. He still suspects an attempt to throw a ready-made family out to Vincent, a line that didn't quite get a bite. “Where is the munchkin, anyway?” 

“Back in Bloomington, petting the goats and getting spoiled rotten.” Jack scoffs, sweeping a hand through his blonde hair and showing off a couple greys before catching Gabe's eye. “What can I do?” 

Gabriel gives the offer a few moments' thought. “Can you sit with him for an hour or so?” 

“Of course,” is the immediate reply, followed by a quick heel-turn. They're tentatively silent as Gabe leads him upstairs and signs him in before disappearing. 

That's always been one of the best parts of Jack. He only questions when he has to, never says 'don't do anything stupid,' never even pulls an 'I told you so' afterwards. He still trusts Gabe, still has his back. 

Gabriel wishes he _was_ going to do something stupid, just to make that trust worthwhile. Wishes he knew where to find the bastards who took Jesse's arm, but the ones who did it are probably long gone and the ones who gave the orders are probably already in jail. The 'why' is both readily apparent and teeth-grindingly unknown. 

Instead, he finds a church that's still unlocked and slips inside to sit in the back row and bow his head. There aren't enough rosary beads in the world to make any of this okay, but it's enough to get him in a place to deal with it, and that's the best he can ask for. 

He's gone longer than an hour, feeling a twinge of guilt when he shakes off the rain and returns to find Jack doing the bob-and-nod in the stiff-backed loveseat. “Do you have a way back or were you planning on spending the night here?” 

Jack's tired face is really stupid-looking, but in an enjoyable way. “Are you?” 

“Well, yeah.” 

In lieu of a reply, Jack shifts over and pats the cushion, folding himself against the arm. He's out before Gabe can argue with him, so he just takes the seat, his mind dully focused on the drip of Jesse's IV's and the low _beep-beep-beep_ of his monitors until sleep drags his chin to his chest. 

In the morning, Gabriel ducks out to drive Olivia to school, fingers tight on the steering wheel until the front doors shut behind her. She had glanced at his hand but returned to her phone, hardly saying anything. Back at the hospital, he finds Jack sipping a coffee and coaxing Jesse through his last few bites of Jell-O. 

“When do you have to report in?” Gabe asks in his kitchen later that day, putting a few groceries away. “Wouldn't want you going AWOL right before your shiny new promotion.” 

There's no barb to the words. Jack is mint-pressed perfect for the job, Gabe is happy for him. It had never been about that. 

“I don't, there was some kind of clusterfuck.” Jack replies, their bare elbows grazing as he rinses the crumbs off his plate. “They didn't even have housing for me. I was stuck in a hotel, grabbed a flight down when Ana called me.” 

Gabriel snorts, responding to the most banal part of that sentence. “Wow, shocker.” 

“I know, I'm completely aghast.” Jack laughs, then steps closer, letting their arms brush innocently again. “If there's anything else you need, just say the word.” 

Perhaps better men wouldn't spend the scant hour before picking up one of their kids from school and sitting vigil at the other kid's bedside with their ex's tongue in their mouth, but hell, him and Jack have gotten it on under more depressing circumstances. Tight quarters, the air choked with death, overwhelmed with the need to feel _something,_ anything good, even just for thirty seconds. They've always been able to recognize that need in each other, it doesn't have to mean anything. 

It definitely doesn't mean anything when Jack slams him against the bedroom door and sucks on his neck until he nearly goes cross-eyed. When he sinks his fingers into Gabe's ass and angles them to grind against the swell of each other's thighs. When he slips a hand under Gabriel's shirt and makes him curse. 

No one knows how much relief he finds in the blue eyes smiling back at him when he shoves Jack onto the bed so he can strip his own clothes off. As fingers bite into his bared back, Gabe decides he's happy to keep it that way. 

“I should go, I promised Hana and Mom I'd call before dinner- stop, you'll make me look like Tintin.” Jack pulls Gabe's hand away from his hair during their perfunctory shower afterwards, hanging on to it and looking over his shoulder as the cool water runs over them. “Torb said there's a really good poutine place by the new base, I've never tried it. We should go, once you're settled in.” 

Or maybe he's a complete fucking liar. Fine, Jack, have it your way. 

Ana escapes airport hell and arrives that evening, gentle enough to get Jesse crying again, but he needs it. The grief of being drop-kicked back to square one isn't something to be walked off. The only way through it is to get wrung out, then hang yourself out to dry. 

“We might be a little while, the traffic is terrible.” Ana draws the hospital blankets up over Jesse's chest, tucking them in carefully. They've got the AC cranked so high the room feels like a fridge. “You're sure fries won't make you sick? We can get something else.” 

“No, m'fine, honest.” Jesse shifts minutely, his voice small and his eyes glassy from pain, meds, or both. “I'm dying for some salt, everything in here tastes like paper.” 

“Alright.” Ana smiles and kisses the top of his head. “Nap if you need it, your body needs all the rest you can get right now.” 

“Yes, ma'am.” Jesse nearly smiles for the first time since he came out of the OR. 

Gabe squeezes his foot through the covers and nods at Olivia, sitting with her knees up in the chair beside his bed. “You're okay here?” 

She nods, the light from her handheld game playing against her face. “Don't forget my slushie.” 

To her credit, Ana holds her tongue while they order and retrieve the food, drive back, eat and watch the fireworks out the hospital window, then inch through traffic until they drop Olivia off at a friend's house for a sleepover. “Just couldn't resist, could you?” 

Gabe thumps his head against the headrest. “Pft, what do you know about it?” 

Ana smirks at him, tossing the loose end of her headscarf over her shoulder. “You have a hickey.” 

“The hell?” Gabe yanks his sweater collar down, searching in the mirror for the distinct outline of Jack's teeth and not finding it, realizing he's been played as soon as she cackles. “Oh, bite my ass, Amari.” 

“Hey, I'm not judging you.” Ana continues snickering, a glint in her tattooed eye. “Follow your bliss. The world's a better place when you two are fucking.” 

Gabriel scoffs, quickly closing the gap in front of them at a honk from behind. “God, I wish it was that easy.” 

She hums, suddenly sounding distant. “You and I both.” 

Normalcy is a long time coming. They get the hell out of New Mexico at least, spending some time on pause during Jesse's stay in a rehab hospital on the East coast before finally getting the all-clear to haul their things out of storage and drive a rental truck across the border. Liv adjusts quickly, taking on the interior design of her new room with no small degree of enthusiasm. 

Gabe temporarily gives up on finding the box with the rest of his underwear and sticks his head in to see if the purple walls are as garish as he expected. They are, but she seems content, her computer desk already assembled. “Wasting no time, I see.” 

“Nope!” She grins, rooting around in a box of carefully-wrapped computer parts. “There was an extra screw left over at the end, but I'll just throw it in a drawer and hope for the best.” 

“Well, if it collapses and breaks your legs, put pressure on the femoral artery and then scream for help.” Gabe smirks back and heads all the way down to the basement. Jesse's prosthetic is still in the works, so he's manhandling a heavy box one-handed. “You want some help?” 

“I'm _fine,_ ” Jesse snarls over his shoulder, stomping into the cave he'd claimed as his room and dropping it with a loud thunk. 

Copy that, loud and clear. Gabe leaves him alone until the surprise arrives, cajoling him out to the front yard where he gets full-frontal tackled into the grass by Fareeha. “Gah! Leggo, you goddamn spider monkey!” 

“Be careful,” Gabe calls after them as they wrestle and chase each other across the lawn, laughing low alongside Ana. “God, she's getting tall.” 

“Taking after her dad,” Ana adds fondly, grabbing a few bags of groceries out of her trunk and tossing them into his arms. “Housewarming present.” 

“You didn't have to do that.” Gabe frowns slightly as she pulls out more bags. “Really, you shouldn't have.” 

“We got hungry on the way here,” Ana smiles. “Figured you'd appreciate them more than another knick-knack that'll end up in a yard sale when you die.” 

“Can't argue with that logic.” Gabe shifts the bags to one arm and digs out his wallet. He waves Jesse over, who opts to carry Fareeha upside-down by her waist after escaping the arm bar she had him in. “Here, go get a six-pack, you know which kind.” 

Jesse takes the ten and eyes him suspiciously. “Drinking age is eighteen here, remember?” 

His eyes light up at that, dropping Fareeha to her feet and cramming the money into the pocket of his fringed jacket. “Aw, sweet! Let's go, 'Ree!” 

The two lope off down the long driveway to the empty country road, Fareeha's basketball shorts shining purple in the shafts of sunlight between the trees. Ana holds the front door open with her foot while he catches up. “Do either of them know where the liquor store is?” 

Gabe just laughs. “No, but they'll have fun figuring it out.” 

Jack's place is smaller, closer to the base, but he visits often. Lets Gabe in on everything he can't say while they're in uniform, even sets Jesse up in night school. A good friend of Reinhardt's hooks Jesse up with a better prosthetic than a much-delayed referral can offer. Olivia only gets suspended once. Sam drives Fareeha up for weekends and school holidays in gradually more successful attempts to chase the sadness out of her eyes. 

“Your jump shot _sucks!”_ Fareeha crows as she steals the ball from Jack, passing it back to her mom who swishes it through the net nailed to the garage, right into Jesse's hand. 

When the game ties, Jack tugs Hana out of the nest of fallen leaves she's made for herself and Gabriel on the sideline, hoisting her on his shoulders to sink the winning basket. She beams, gap-toothed and victorious, as they cheer and Jack's smile only falters when she nearly falls and yanks on his hair. Gabe waits until the kids aren't looking to good-game him, the smirk fired over his shoulder worth whatever payback he'll get later. 

It's good, and they pay a hefty price for it, starting with the memo on the Lacroix kidnapping. 

Every inch of Gabe's skin is haunted, tongue forever poisoned by a hundred different regrets, but he still wishes he could have told Amélie that she wasn't the cold-hearted monster they conjured up for the evening news. And damn if Gérard didn't teach her something about how to vanish into thin air. 

Then Ana takes a bullet and spends way too long between dead and alive. Her Phineas Gage-style recovery is admirable as hell, and Gabe makes sure to compliment her on it as soon as he recovers from him and Jack getting blown to shit. 

That kind of recovery is like chasing an antidote by waking up each morning and stroking the snake that bit you. Being informed of your newfound uselessness while simultaneously getting respectfully threatened into silence by the decimal points on a cheque is only the cherry on top. They didn't even have the decency to put Jack in the same ward so he could make at least one sponge bath joke per day, anything to make the minutes tick by a little faster. 

Jack was still valuable to them, for a while, anyway. Maybe he got a better bed. 

Things get Radiohead-on-repeat levels of dark and self-pitying inside his head real quick, but his kids do their best to ruin that. He never so appreciated Olivia's allergy to dishonesty as when she walked into his room once he got transferred to the VA hospital and gasped. “Holy shit, you look _awful._ ” 

The thorns had dropped off Jesse's kindness by then, though he was always oddly subdued about it. His arm on the edge of the car door, looking off into the distance and blocking the view while Gabe shakes, on fire with pain and the infantile frustration of being unable to stand. “Put your hand on my shoulder and try it again when you're ready. No rush.” 

They're what keep him on his meds and the doctors' asses to get him up and going. He isn't about to have either of them stay home and porter him around like an old man, not yet. Getting to and from Liv's high school graduation unaided and in a relatively small amount of agony is good enough for him. Would have been nice if it had been good enough for Jack. 

Jesse leaves home for initially-good not long after, burning with the unspoken hunger of being eight steps behind everyone who got to grow up with two parents and less than five addresses. Rooming with Fareeha during her gap year and driving each other bonkers over groceries and thrice-weekly sit-up competitions is good for him. But he loses his footing a few times afterwards, only making that late-night call when the eviction notices get slipped under his door. 

“Jess, I love you so much, but this kind of stubbornness is gonna drive your credit straight off a cliff.” Gabriel pauses, but Jesse continues his sunken-eyed, ashamed stare through the windshield. “Look, I know asking for help isn't easy. Sometimes you have to suck it up and do it anyway.” 

He absolutely deserves the sidelong glare he gets for that bit of blatant hypocrisy, so he elects not to comment on it. 

That chosen silence colours maybe too much of their relationship, like when Jesse gets a waiter gig that Gabriel would never recommend for him in a million years and is subsequently fired in spectacular fashion. The scramble between the first of the month and his surgery date burns him right out. Gabe can tell it's more than physical pain keeping him in the basement. 

“I don't mind having you home, so long as you wash your own underwear,” Gabe needles after coaxing him up for some late night reruns. He means it, the kid is welcome to belt Juice Newton in his shower for as long as he needs to, the house has felt too empty since Olivia booked it back South. “But regardless of where you're living, you deserve to hold your head up. I think it's time to try therapy again.” 

“Psh, I don't need that shit any more.” Jesse purposefully adjusts the little kangaroo pouch of his drains, forcing another smile he clearly thinks looks genuine. 

“Oh yeah, what did you eat today?” The not-smile is replaced by a frown, sharp teeth on edge. He looks so damn tired, and not for lack of sleep. “Meet me halfway here. Find a decent one and go twice. If it sucks, don't go back. If it works, then keep going until you don't need to anymore, that's what I did.” 

Jesse narrows his eyes, that stubborn kid still front and centre in the thrust of his chin, though he's long since filled out into the robust young man he had longed to be. “Bullshit.” 

Gabriel merely throws an eyebrow up. “You really think I've gotten to this point in my life without crying on a few couches? Like hell I'd be sitting here sober if that were the case.” 

Jesse tucks himself back into his slump, expression subtly cowed. Gabe realizes he's closed off one path of conversation, leaving Jesse unable to say he shouldn't need to go without backhandedly insulting the person currently feeding and supporting him. He doesn't feel great about that. “I just don't see how it'll help anythin'.” 

Gabe considers his words rather than rushing to fill the silence, breathing out slow past the ache in his bones. “It helps as much as you let it help, no way around that.” 

“'Spose you're right,” Jesse mumbles, barely audible. A better response than he hoped for. 

Gabriel senses it's a good time to leave him alone with his thoughts and stands, stretching his everything out after the episode ends. “I'm gonna hit the sack.” He squeezes the back of Jesse's neck, half-worried he'll flinch away. “Don't stay up too late.” 

The little huff of a laugh is reassurance enough, the kid's head ducked and his overgrown hair hiding his eyes. “I won't.” 

A steady, professional drizzle manages to drench and help close some of the cracks. By New Year's, Jesse is pre-gaming with Olivia and Fareeha in the kitchen, all dressed up and shaking their hips to some noise that definitely isn't Gabe's taste, but he's glad to see them having fun. It would be even nicer if Jesse's string of shitty relationships would stop re-opening those cracks, but the kid's still got better sense than him in that regard. 

“Don't waste your time on that fool,” Jesse bristles over dinner at one of Gabe's infrequent mentions of a certain John Francis 'I want you until my ex shows literally any sign of wanting me back' Morrison. “He'll just jerk you around again, you don't need that.” 

That's the sort of thing that leaves Gabriel wondering if it's too late to start modelling better relationship choices. And here he thought going for a drive when certain songs came on the kitchen radio was so subtle. 

Olivia probably wins the family rationality prize, finding her id in her work and the itinerant life it affords her. She reminds him of Ana, that way. Meanwhile Jesse, for all that he's grown, is still a sweet kid looking for a smile, his soft heart only papered over. The more he gets caught in the grind of day to day, job to job, city to city, the more Gabe worries about it turning him bitter and stealing that sweetness away. 

“No more douchecanoes,” Olivia unilaterally declares one Easter weekend, brandishing two spoons and dropping a pint of double-fudge ice cream into the lap of a freshly-lonesome cowboy. 

“A-fuckin'-men to that,” Jesse agrees, the two sharing a heartfelt fistbump and claiming the living room couch and the remote for their own. 

In the interim between that solemn vow and Jesse's next big fat crush, he settles in the city where Fareeha's stationed and seems better off for it. Meanwhile, Gabe ignores three separate three-line emails three months apart, until Jack has the enormous brass balls to turn up on his doorstep. 

With his grandmother's engagement ring. 

His Nobel Peace Prize had better be in the fucking mail. 

“If you're about to spin some bullshit about how you never actually loved him, save it. I don't care, never did.” Gabriel taps some buttons on the microwave to reheat his coffee, watching it turn. He's already hoarse after they've been shouting about more important grievances for the better part of an error, but what seems pettiest always cuts the deepest. “He's a good guy, I've got nothing bad to say about him.” 

Except that he was only ever interested in the transition to civilian life, the benefits, the stripes on an old uniform to hang in his closet. He wasn't a soldier down to his bones. He had been good to Jack, but he could never be like him. In all his time in the field, Gabe had never met anyone else like him. 

“I wasn't, I did.” Jack lets it hang until the microwave beeps. “Hell, there's a part of me that still does.” 

Gabe wrenches the door open. His ire has cooled now that the stars are pricking through the purple of the horizon, but he's still tensed to a tight coil. “Goddamn, you sure do like wasting plane tickets to tell guys how much they don't mean to you.” 

“No, that's not-” There's that aggravated sigh again, muffled by his hand. He's getting real sick of hearing that. “I went to cut him loose, to apologize for wasting his time. I would have told you that when I got back if you hadn't completely shut me out.” 

“You're really gonna stand there and pretend you didn't know how bad that looked?” His jaw so tight, the porcelain in his back teeth is close to cracking, and his gestures flippant. “Well, you'll have to forgive me for not taking phone calls while I was getting my face grafted back onto the rest of my face.” 

“I fucked up, I know that. Whether I meant to or not, I never should have left you like I did.” Jack lifts his cloudy eyes from the floor, as uncompromising as ever with his arms crossed, back against the sink. “But nothing happened, honest. We talked, I crashed on his couch and caught a flight the next morning, that's all.” 

The coffee tastes burnt in Gabriel's throat. “Give me one good reason to believe that.” 

“I don't have one,” Jack answers back, sock toes curling against the tile. “And I didn't come here to make one up, or ask your forgiveness. I just- I couldn't go the rest of my life without talking to you again.” 

Jack looks away, which he never once did in all their arguments. His hand persistently rubs the back of his neck, something youthful still lingering in a face carved up by shrapnel and rough with silvery stubble. He hasn't moved, and yet Gabe is suddenly reminded of a wolf exposing its throat. 

He takes a long sip to buy himself a moment, eyes on Jack's profile. “That's it?” 

“That's it.” Jack inclines his head, a suggestion of a smile on those prettyboy lips. “Never knew how much I could miss getting my ass chewed out.” 

The string of tension in his jaw loosens treacherously. “That used to be my line for you.” 

Jack's laugh comes out in a quick huff. “Getting fresh with me and you haven't even offered me a drink, what happened to your manners?” 

Gabe snorts and sets his mug down. “You walked into a man's house with your kit bag and no place to stay, what the hell happened to yours?” 

“Oh, it's like that, is it?” 

“Yeah.” Gabe steps forward- perennially against his better interests -into Jack's personal space, bumping their folded arms together. Injuries may have depleted them, but they're still equally matched in bulk and breadth. “It's like that.” 

“Fine by me.” Jack bumps him back, and that barely-there hint of playfulness sends a sweet-stinging pain right through Gabe's chest. “I'm not asking for another chance.” 

Gabe nods faintly, beginning to realize he's in a position to make certain demands. Demands that will be met so long as he lets him- the man he's been stuck on for thirty-odd years -stay. “Good.” 

“Cool.” Jack's mouth twitches just so, and they're quiet, studying each other. Gabe doesn't move, Jack knows him well enough to know he won't give first. He's the only one left who knows him that well. 

Jack unfolds his arms, leans in, then hesitates. Breath hot against Gabriel's lips and oh, fuck that's too much, too honest at this distance. He leans in again, Gabe reaching for him as Jack pushes off the counter- 

And knocks his grandmother's ring, the saccharine proof that he hadn't given up on what was left of them, right down the kitchen sink. 

The echoing rattle of it bouncing down to the apparent bowels of the Earth freezes them in impotent despair, until Jack pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a protracted groan. “Dad's gonna gut me like a fish.” 

In Gabe's defence, he calls a plumber as soon as he stops laughing. 

Jack's gotten through his weekly illuminating video call with Hana (who's in college now, which Gabe still isn't okay with) and three with the bank by the time Gabriel gets bored of listening to him and calls Jesse to consult on their joint birthday gift for Ana, though they end up talking about Jesse's date plans instead. 

“Same guy from last month?” Gabe can't help but grin at Jesse's eager agreement. “Sounds serious. Is he cute?” 

Jesse's bashful chuckle registers as fuzz on his outdated phone. “Oh, he's way past cute. Real funny too, you'll like him.” 

“I see. How'd you meet? Or is that something I'm better off not knowing?” 

“Hah, no, it wasn't like- he's actually Genji's older brother.” 

Gabe hums in partial surprise, prodding Felix with the feather duster when the damn cat won't get off his favourite napping shelf. “Genji has a brother?” 

“Well, see, about that-” 

He does some deeper investigating, but ultimately it's Genji's behaviour towards his brother that keeps him curious over concerned. He's happy for him, Genji never seemed designed to go through life as an only child. Though monastic living has him doing a lot better than the dead-eyed drowned rat Jesse scruffed and dragged up to Christmas a few years back. He barely opened his mouth then, but he reminded Gabe of a younger Jesse. Despite the pain radiating off him and the flat affect from popping pills, he was nothing but respectful when he did speak, and his frigid responses to kindness came from surprise, not spite. 

He's in a couple classes with Hana now, seemingly keen to make something of himself. Gabriel tells him he's proud of him when they periodically text or bump into each other at Jesse's, he's not sure if he has anyone else to tell him that. 

Gabe is initially less impressed with the dysthymic hipster trash panda who turns up at the tail end of Fareeha's first Eid party at her own place. Greasy and scowling, offering a clipped apology for being kept by an evening shift before jamming his hands in his pockets. He's an artist, Jesse's always had a thing for artists. 

Save dire circumstances, he's not about to micromanage his kids' love lives. But he's been the one on the other side- so sucked into their own despair that they drag others down with them. The thought of Jesse getting used up and kicked to the curb again eats at him. 

His sisters are more vocal, especially during a flashlight-lit Christmas Eve card game that goes all the way to the witching hour because Gabe, Jack, and Ana collectively raised a bunch of sore losers. 

“Dude, if he's not willing to work for all this-” Gabe hears Fareeha yell-whisper as he strips off his coat and scarf and urges his feet towards bed. “Don't waste your time chasing him, you deserve better.” 

“She's right,” Liv chimes in. “You have to do less for the dick, let the dick come to you, instead.” 

“Man, fuck off with-” 

“Full house!” 

There's a kerfuffle over the distribution of chocolate coins and an accusation or two lobbed at Hana's card-sharking. By the time Gabriel returns for a glass of water, she's the one dispensing words of wisdom. 

“I'm not saying dump him tomorrow or anything, just maybe give him an ultimatum? You can't put your life on hold for someone else.” 

“I'm not-” Jesse clicks his tongue as Gabe eases up the stairs, sounding the slightest bit defensive. “Look, I know he loves me, I just gotta be patient. He's got his reasons, I'm sure.” 

Yeah, that's more than slightly heartbreaking. 

But rather than leeching Jesse's reserves of affection and generosity dry, Hanzo appears to bloom beneath his shade. By the following Christmas, Gabe's gotten to know the guy better. His time volunteering at the youth centre lets him recognize the frequent monotone and the eyes that never rise above his shoulder for what they are, long before Genji's little girl arrives and brings everything into crisp focus for her uncle. He keeps that observation to himself. Not his place to say, and it doesn't change anything, besides. 

That same visit, he spots Jesse on the basement couch, passed out in front of the TV with a belly full of latkes and wine. He's about to wake him when he notices Hanzo mashed between his back and the couch. Jesse groans in his sleep and Hanzo rouses slightly, tightening his arms around Jesse's chest and settling when he continues to snore. Gabe throws a quilt over them and heads back to bed. 

“He seems happier,” Ana remarks on the way to the airport. They only gets to see snapshots of Jesse, of all of them, on weekend visits, online posts, and the other end of the phone, but she's right. It's the no-bullshit kind of happy that can't be faked, the easy smile and the way he's always looking forward to something now. This trip, that get-together with their friends, instead of just one long slog between shifts and days off full of drinking and nothing. They argue, they get a dog, they find a way. 

Come summer, Fareeha's shacked up with Reinhardt's old friend and their cozy house brims with warm food and bodies, transporting Gabe back to Sunday dinners as a kid. She greets them at the door, raising her voice over the din. “This year's theme is break fasts, not hearts.” 

“I thought that was last year's theme,” Jack replies, managing to remain attractive in his least obnoxious Hawaiian shirt and the oven mitts required to hold the dish they finished cooking at Jesse's. 

“It's called recycling, catch up.” Fareeha beams and proudly leads the way to their kitchen. 

The fire pit out back makes for a damn good, if mosquito-filled dinner. Half the party's dispersed by the time it starts to spit rain, and those remaining help fold up the blankets and lawn chairs and drag them into the garage. 

“What a handsome top,” Ana comments, smoothing the collar of Jesse's new-looking white button-down as he pours water on the remaining embers and stirs the ashes. 

“Thanks Ma,” Jesse smiles around his cigarillo, showing teeth. “He goes by Hanzo, though.” 

Hanzo's head snaps around. Gabriel keeps wiping down the wet bar and waits. Jesse might be an adult, but there's some things he won't stand for, namely some prodigal yakuza prince telling Jesse he's too uncouth, so this and too little that, scolding him for making a joke like that in front of- 

A loud _'snrk'_ eclipses Ana's soft chuckle, followed by a giggle fit wholly unbecoming of anyone over the age of five. Hanzo tries to smother it with his hand, nearly losing his grip on a folded beach chair, ears flushing as he laughs. Gabe really can't blame Jesse for looking at the guy like the sun's shining out of his face. He's been there, laughing unnecessarily loud back and all. 

“Made ya snort!” Jesse jabs a finger into Hanzo's chest while he collects himself. “In the wild, no less! I think I get bonus points for that.” 

“Enough, enough. You only caught me off-guard.” Hanzo gently shoves him back, but the way their grins linger, eyes caught on each other beneath a grey, rumbling sky, is all too telling. 

Inside, Jesse's smile fades rapidly as all but their closest family head home one after another. He keeps rubbing his forehead and breathing through his mouth, saying little until his face turns pallid and he swiftly excuses himself. Angela checks on him after a time and puts fears of food poisoning to rest, declaring it a migraine or twenty-four hour flu. While they turn down the TV and change sleeping arrangements, Hanzo disappears down the hall. 

An hour and some passes before Gabriel exits the bathroom and peers into the spare bedroom, finding Jesse curled up and shirtless beneath the duvet, Hanzo on the bed beside him, legs off while he reads something on his dimmed phone. His free hand rubs feather-light circles into Jesse's bare back. “You don't have to stay in here.” 

“Ah, forgive me. I don't mean to be anti-social.” Hanzo's mouth thins in the weak light from the hall, his voice low. “I don't want to leave him alone, he never gets sick like this. He couldn't even handle the anti-nausea pill.” 

Gabe hums in agreement, drumming his fingers soundlessly on the doorframe. “If he can't keep water down by morning, I'll drive him to the ER.” 

“Don't need the hospital, m'fine,” Jesse groans, then starts to cough. Hanzo swiftly grabs the bucket and holds his hair, resuming his back rubs as Jesse chokes up bile. Gabe winces in sympathy and softly shuts the door to lend the kid some privacy. 

By the time Gabe's rolling off the pull-out couch, Jesse's already on his way to the kitchen. Ana reaches for his forehead, her other hand on her usual chair. “Feeling better, habibi?” 

“Much, thanks. Dunno what that was.” Gabriel pulls up to the island as Jesse wraps his arms around Hanzo's middle and plants a big wet one on his cheek, sinking against him while he's diligently working at the counter. “Sorry about all that, darlin'.” 

“Don't apologize, you were ill. Here.” Hanzo thrusts a dish of freshly buttered toast at him, accepting another smooch to his temple in thanks. “How do you take your coffee, Ana?” 

“One milk, two sugars, thank you dear.” She thumbs Hanzo's cheek as he passes her the mug, proving once again that he does know how to smile. 

In unspoken tradition, they don't leave the breakfast table until the last person (Angela, though Jack nearly ties it) tumbles out of bed and eats. As they talk and refill their cups, Hanzo's hand barely leaves Jesse's knee. 

The next time they come down is to two-for-one celebrate Jesse's birthday and the official start of his apprenticeship. A fresh start that he's far more sheepish about than he should be, jabbing at drying bits of sushi with his chopsticks. “I just feel weird is all, joinin' at the same time as all these kids. Most of 'em look like they're fuckin' twelve.” 

“Don't, you actually know what you're doing.” Jack dismisses over his beer bottle. The small karaoke bar isn't even half-full, but he still has to nearly yell over the speakers. “You'll leave them in the dust from day one.” 

“Tch, I don't care about that, so long as they don't give me a hard time.” 

“They'll have much to answer for, if they do.” Hanzo's voice comes crisp from Jesse's other side, thick fingers tightening subtly around his glass. Gabe silently chalks up another point in Hanzo's favour. 

Jesse laughs and throws an arm over the back of his chair, gesturing to him. “He's just excited 'cause he likes the way my ass looks in coveralls.” 

“Not true,” Hanzo retorts, almost preening as a smirk quirks his lips. “I like the way the rest of you looks, too.” 

They fall against each other in half-lit laughter, the rest of the table carrying on in similar fashion, though Fareeha and Zen are only sipping ginger ale. It's early, but Gabe still feels like a tourist in another generation, though him and Jack don't seem to be cramping their style yet. 

Angela leaves open the album of the mods she's created for Jesse's arm before taking to the low stage, leaving everyone but a distracted Fareeha to ooh-and-aah over the damned impressive attachments while she kills it on '99 Luftballons.' 

“Beautifully done!” Genji pecks her cheek as their applause fades, a grin lighting up his face as he eagerly beckons Jesse from his seat. “But hold my beer.” 

Jack heads downstairs to grab the next round. Jesse and Genji's performance is high on showmanship, giving their all beneath the flickering lights, not so much as glancing at the words on the off-kilter projector screen beside them. 

“Doesn't quite measure up to the ones in Japan, eh?” Gabe says to Hanzo, the man nearly twitching out of the smiling, faraway stare he's directing at his son. 

“I suppose not.” Hanzo huffs a laugh and rests his arms on the sticky table, tipping his head curiously. “You've been?” 

“Sure have, when we were in South Korea.” Gabriel takes a deep swallow of his beer to make his ears pop, his fingers itching to knit. “Ended up in one of those fancy places in Roppongi while we were on leave. I remember trying to sing falsetto and I remember waking up in Ana's hotel room, and not a goddamn thing in between.” 

Hanzo chuckles along with him, drowned out by the cheers of the others. His eyes stay low, voice barely audible between the pulses of music. “I only went a few times, with Genji, when we were young. The ones in Hanamura weren't quite as fancy. It was only a small village, really.” 

Gabe recognizes a maudlin drunk when he hears one. “Do you miss it?” 

Hanzo's shoulders draw back, but his expression doesn't harden as it often does. The sobriety of the moment undercut by the twin peals of _'Do you be-LIEEEVE in life after love?'_ in the background. “I don't miss the person I was, but I can't help missing the-” He makes a small, grasping gesture. “The familiarity, the sense that I was part of something older and greater than myself.” 

Gabriel nods, sifting the sympathetic from the pitying in his voice. “Strange feeling, isn't it?” 

Hanzo nods in turn, and seems about to say something else when Jesse and Genji return in sweat-glowing, hoarse glory. The other patrons seemingly scared away from the stage, Genji dips to forcefully squeeze his brother. “Alright, Hanzo, your turn. You promised!” 

“Ah, you're actually going to sing this time?” Zenyatta asks around a mouthful of rice. 

“I lost a bet, the terms of which I am not at liberty to disclose.” Hanzo glowers, holding up one finger and gulping the rest of his whisky, slamming the glass down as he pushes himself up. Genji's already at the machine, scrolling through the songs on his behalf. “Alright, let's do this. Jesse, this one's for you.” 

Jack returns with a tray of glasses in time for the tail end of Hanzo's performance, as impressed as the rest of them by his ability to hit all the notes in 'Jolene.' 

He has his earbuds in for the first half-hour of the train ride home, listening to his screen reader until he yanks them out and types something in rapid frustration. Gabriel spares a glance at him, the air in their mostly-deserted car stale and artificially cool. “All good?” 

“Yeah, yeah, just going over Hana's latest contract.” Jack's frown doesn't abate as he scratches at his five o'clock shadow, zooming in on his Google result. “I don't understand half of what the damn thing says.” 

“Isn't that why she has an agent?” Gabe asks, glancing outside at the black blotches of trees and buildings as they whizz by. “And she does read them before signing, right?” 

“She does, and that's why she's not sending me anymore after this.” Jack shakes his head and stares blankly at his phone. Gabriel silently nods, realizing why they hadn't stopped by her apartment earlier in the day. “I know all these people are looking at her and seeing dollar signs, opportunities- I'm not trying to be an asshole, I'm just trying to help.” 

“I know.” Gabe reaches over and gently squeezes his thigh. “But there comes a point where you have to let them handle their own fuck-ups, whatever they end up being.” 

“Yeah, I know.” Jack puts his feet on the empty seat facing them, tucking his fist under his chin and mumbling into it, sounding slightly more defeated than bitter. “You've always been better at this than I have.” 

Letting things go? Definitely not, but he undoubtedly means more than that. Gabe considers how best to go there, but ends up grunting as the train rattles over a bridge. A twinge of nerve pain shooting up his back and drawing Jack out of his brooding. “Is it bad? You should get up and walk if you can.” 

“Nah, I'm fine.” Gabriel thinks for a second, then directs his best puppy eyes back at him. “But if I say yes, will you rub it when we get home?” 

That merits a thin smile. “Hm, what's in it for me?” 

“At least one orgasm in the next forty-eight hours?” 

The smile breaks through his voice like a patch of sunlight. “Is that a threat or a promise?” 

Gabe grins back, accepting Jack's hand in his own and rubbing his thumb over his jagged knuckles as he tips his seat back. “Why not both?” 

A routine surgery and subsequent recurring infection render almost nine months into a blur, the relief of summer and and the shivering misery of winter sliding indifferently by him. At some point in that mess, Genji gets engaged to his nice boyfriend of forever and a day, and Gabe gets his immune system back together in time to attend the little brat's wedding. He hadn't expected an invite, but he's grateful for the opportunity to muss up Genji's hair and congratulate him. He shares a few pints with Rein and crashes at his cottage for the night, waking up to a full carnivorous breakfast, just like the good old days. 

He doesn't get to talk to Jesse much that night, as he's either handling behind-the-scenes gaffs or pulling Hanzo onto the dance floor over and over and over. An omission he finds himself regretting in the tense couple months between Jesse's health scare and the sweet relief when he pulls through his hysto like a champ. 

A sneaky picture of Hanzo, pajama-clad and hair in a tangled bun with Jesse's feet on his lap, captioned “This one's barely left my side in three days <3” should have been hint enough, but the news still manages to surprise him. 

The medium is unsurprising given Jesse's fondness for his new camera and his favourite model. Gabriel wakes up to sunshine and Felix's piebald ass in his face. Jack's still half-cocooned in the blankets beside him, so he opts to dick around on his phone. He always checks the kids' accounts first, Olivia's been posting more and it's easier to keep in touch with her when she's in a different time zone. On reaching Jesse's, he notices the amount of hearts and all-caps in the comments before the rings. 

“Well, I'll be damned.” Jack rolls over with a grunt, pushing himself up to lean against Gabe's arm, a streak of drool dried on his chin. “Get a load of this.” 

“What are we looking at here?” Jack squints at his phone and Gabe remembers a moment too late that he has a hard time with colour contrasts. 

“Looks like Jess finally eloped on us.” 

Jack laughs, soft and raspy, scrubbing the sleep from his eyes as he fondly clicks his tongue. “Aw, that's great. Tell 'em I say congrats.” 

“Will do,” Gabe smirks, tapping out half a message and finding himself short on words. 

There was one thing he could never give his kids, and that was a feeling of home. Rip that away from a child even once, and they'll be chasing it for the rest of their lives with zero guarantee of catching up. Olivia took a drifting life seemingly in stride, but Jesse had been longing for a somewhere all his own since the day they dropped him on Ana's doorstep. 

It was never the lack of ambition that he'd been accused of at times, it was that his soul and its desires bent more inwards than a first or tenth glance could reveal. Not a job or a place, but a home, love, and an uncomplicated life. Gabriel hadn't let himself imagine that, but Jesse had. 

Jack gently taps his chin where the numbness isn't, tilting his head to meet him in an achingly tender kiss. Sucks all sweet on his bottom lip between one smack and the next. Leaves his fingers against Gabe's jaw as he nuzzles against his neck. “Do you have anywhere to be today?” 

He runs his thumb along the fractured glass at the bottom of his phone, watching more comments roll in as he finally hits send. “Nope.” 

Jack's smile flickers against his skin. He shifts his whole body to lay against him, a warm weight melting into his side and sighing when Gabriel reaches across to cradle Jack's cheek, voice all husky. “Good.” 

It turns out to be a case of Hanzo beating Jesse to the punch, and the wedding is exactly what a couple of good kids like them deserve. No one watching could doubt the sincerity of those vows, the very sight of them enough to spit-shine the most cynical soul. Hell, even Amélie can't keep from smiling. 

The newlyweds slap together an exceptionally decent brunch the next morning, in part to spend more time with the out-of-town guests and as thanks to anyone willing to stick around and help clean up. 

“You always wear those sunglasses indoors, Genji?” Gabriel asks while rinsing the dishes, watching him swing gingerly by on his crutches, a bag of empty cans on each wrist. 

Genji's mouth wrinkles into a pale frown. “What have I ever done to you?” 

As the afternoon winds down, Gabe leaves Jack and Olivia to Tetris their bags in the trunk, running into Hanzo as he finishes a sweep of the house to make sure no one forgot anything. A small gift is pushed into his hands, the paper razor-cut so the patterns line up exactly and a ribbon tied neatly in the centre. “Oh wow, thanks! I always wanted a box.” 

“It's just a small thing.” A hushed laugh breaks through the terrific formality of Hanzo's tone, bare arms tucked loosely against his chest. “A token of my appreciation, for your part in raising the man I ended up marrying. Parents don't often get the credit they deserve, in my opinion.” 

A smile tugs at Gabriel's lips. “Well hey, we get Father's Day, at least.” 

Hanzo's expression creases, an embarrassed hand sweeping over his freshly-shorn sides. “Yes, but I forgot, and Jesse forgot, so hopefully this somewhat makes up for it.” 

“Pft, you think I care? C'mere.” Gabe holds one arm out experimentally and steps forward, pulling Hanzo in. The kid hugs back a little stiff, and does the awkward double-pat to end it, but it's clear in his face that it was welcome. Even more so is the arm that's thrown around his shoulders by an approaching Jesse, relighting the stars in his eyes. 

“Where are you guys staying?” Gabe asks as they step out into the relentless sunshine, sliding his gift in alongside two more in the luggage puzzle. 

“Not sure yet. Figured we'd leave in an hour or so and find someplace when we get there.” 

Jack nearly chokes on his water. “You're going to Niagara Falls, with no reservations, in June?” 

Hanzo shrugs, wearing a smile somewhere between serene and resigned. “At this point, I'm just along for the chaos.” 

Jesse's at least half-kidding, Gabriel's pretty sure by the look in his eyes. Still, he hugs him a little longer when the others come out to say goodbye. “Have fun and don't die, alright?” 

“No promises,” Jesse snorts, his arm tight and warm across Gabe's back. “But I'll text ya when we get there.” 

Gabriel's offering of shotgun to whoever is least likely to fall asleep on the way to the airport results in Olivia in the front, her seat pushed almost all the way forward so Jack can stretch out his legs, him and Ana chatting quietly in the back. Olivia seems unpeturbed, sitting cross-legged and snorting out one of her signature giggles at something on her phone. “What's so funny?” 

“Heh, nothing. Zarya sent me a really good meme, I'll show you later.” 

“Ah, pink hair, right?” 

“That's right.” Gabe nods, keeping his thoughts to himself and fixing some of her hair while they idle at a red. Glancing in the mirror, Ana and Jack are already respectively daydreaming and dozing. He's almost disappeared into his own thoughts when she pipes up again. “I think Jesse made the right call.” 

She keeps her pensive face mostly impassive, but he smiles, recognizing it for what it is and speeding up as they merge onto the highway. “Yeah, so do I.” 

They would be okay, and Gabe's somewhat reluctant to admit it, but he still needs Jesse to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly didn't intend to publish this on Father's Day, but dang, look at me being thematically appropriate!  
> If Father's Day is tough for you I'm sorry <3 and I want you to know that Gabe and Jack are your dads now. I spoke with them personally and they're both very proud of you and hope you're eating enough. 
> 
> It's worth noting that Gabe's assumption that Jack adopted Hana to win over Vincent isn't (100%) correct, hence the unreliable narrator tag. Jack loves being a dad and Hana loves her dad even when he's a big dumb. Gabe realizes this later and they also probably have an argument about it. 
> 
> Also I don't want to clutter the page with brackets (or my own toddler's grasp of Spanish), but most convos between Jesse, Gabe, and Olivia would be partly or fully in Spanish, as with Hanzo and Genji conversing in Japanese, etc. I try to find a balance between tossing phrases in to convey this and not trying too hard and coming off goofy/disrespectful. 
> 
> Two biggest revelations from writing this: 1) I have A Lot of Feelings about R76 and they're damn fun to write, and 2) Jack's full name is _canonically_ John Francis Morrison. Sweet Jesus, I'm overwhelmed by the urge to take his lunch money, what a nerd. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, hope you liked it, and much love to everyone this Pride month <3!


End file.
